


To Catch One's Breath

by greenful



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Earth C (Homestuck), Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Introspection, Trans John Egbert, don't even know what ships if any i'll include, gender euphoria, unsure of which characters to add bc i don't know where this story is going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22063879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenful/pseuds/greenful
Summary: John Egbert is deeply, profoundly unhappy. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that realizing this has not immediately fixed his problems. What will?
Kudos: 39
Collections: June Egbert Jam





	To Catch One's Breath

You wake up, but you wish you hadn't. You curl into yourself, hugging the warm blanket closer to your huddled body. You try in vain to go back to sleep, but you can tell there's no escape for you in your dreams. You haven't dreamed in anime for quite a while (which you are very thankful for) but your sleep has still been rather... uncomfortable as of late. You aren't getting the classic “teeth falling out” or “falling forever” or “on stage and forgot your lines” or other dreams like those, but you're not fully immune from the scourge of the classic nightmares.

I mean, you are definitely getting the “doing a school presentation and BOOM you are Suddenly Naked!” dream, and that sucks very much. Not only have you not been in school since you were what? Thirteen? Yeah, polynomials and shit isn't really a part of the Windy Thing's domain, so even in the best of circumstances you'd probably be pretty fucked trying to present in front of a class. But when you go to switch slides and you look down at the laser pointer that the teacher lent you, and you see right there. Your green slime ghost shirt? Gone. Your too-big-on-you jeans? Gone. Your tasteful undergarments? Fucking gone. Your dream spends an uncomfortably long amount of time on this part. Every time.

You know it's just a dream, and you know it's probably not that big of a deal and you know for fucking Certain that you're never ever going to tell Rose “Freud and Jung's lovechild” Lalonde about this dream. But even looking down at your dream self's naked body, it is astronomically uncomfortable. Your spindly arms, your hairy chest, your undefined, pudgy stomach. And below that... let's just say that all in all you don't enjoy the way your subconscious renders your physical form.

Of course you don't really like the way the physical world renders your physical form that much either. But you suppose that's partially your fault as well. A few of your fingers trace the sneaky stubble that showed up on your face overnight. Maybe if you just cared more about your appearance, about how you presented yourself, if you cared more in general? You recoil as the pointy spikes of hair that adorn your unshaven face poke at your finger flesh, coldly disregarding any care for, say, nerve cells. You let out a low groan and start the gradual process of untangling yourself from the sheets.

There's nothing for it. The gradual advance of your unsightly facial hair has reached a point of outward-jutting impudence that you have no choice but to take it to task. You retrieve a family heirloom: your father's robust straight razor. Once you were old enough to lift the dresser, you found it tucked with a note congratulating you on your advanced stage of manhood, with a detailed list of instructions guiding you toward the most adult and manly facial fashion possible.

Jade has recently accused you of spending too much time alone, with no hobbies. You would disagree with her, quite frankly. Not only do you spend exactly the right amount of time at home (all of your time, that is) but you also do have a hobby. You have dedicated yourself, on days you have the energy to do so at least, to mastering your father's razor. While you could barely shave with it at all at first, or at least got through the affair adorned with razor burn, you have grown rather adept with the tool. Dave likes to poke fun of you for shaving in such an old fashioned way, but you really do think you get a better, more precise shave this way.

And that's just the way you like it, quite frankly. Sure Dirk and Jake can get away with a little stubble on their masturbatory masculine machinations on tv (the carapacians, being bald, eat that shit up), but you've always felt cleanest with a clean face. Guess that's why they call it that. Some find shaving to be a tedious part of a daily grooming routine, but in all honesty it's one of the few hygiene measures you take nowadays. It's not that you're actively trying to be gross, it's just that you don't have the energy to care about that when you know you hardly ever see anyone anymore.

Maybe it's because it reminds you of your dad, maybe it's because you don't want to sink too low into what's obviously a depressive episode so you need to do Something, maybe it's just that you enjoy the almost-meditative act of getting the closest, cleanest shave, but no matter the actual cause, you feel a profound sense of satisfaction as you splash some Barbasol-branded aftershave onto your baby-smooth gob. You briefly consider having a shower, but the mere thought of seeing your naked body right now... is disquieting.

Instead of engaging in anything remotely introspective as a reaction to this, you just walk out of the bathroom and into the living room. You planned on just sitting on the couch and trying to watch YouTube videos, not knowing what kind of video you wanted to watch and eventually just settling on the weird alternian lo-fi that Dave tried to turn you on to.

But no. You can't focus on anything other than the dusty, unused piano that you haven't touched in... how long exactly? Didn't your piano get destroyed at some point? Did someone get a fresh piano in here for you to ignore? When's the last time you played any keyboard, for that matter?

A brief hint of a memory of playing the wedding march for Kanaya and Rose flashes through your mind. It was fun enough, but you can't really think of anything else in your memory. You sit at the piano bench and attempt to play a haunting refrain: an old earth tune called Happy Birthday. Half a bar in you run out of energy, head sinking onto the keys, producing a dissonant, unpleasant chord.

A young man sits, crying in his bedroom. As it happens, today is his birthday. Though it was 23 years ago that he was given life, and 10 years ago that he was given a name, he can't help the feeling that he doesn't even want either of those things anymore. You used to have a variety of interests, from programming, to music, to video games, to hanging out with your friends... you can't figure out where all the passion has gone. Your name is John Egbert.

What will you do?

What _can_ you do?

  
  


You wish you knew.


End file.
